Jordan rails at 'disgrace' of F1 failures

AUSTIN Texas (Reuters) - Formula One has failed its smaller teams and should be ashamed at the way some of them have been driven out of business, according to former owner Eddie Jordan.

"I am absolutely sick of the way Formula One is being run at the moment," the Irishman, whose small Jordan team gave Michael Schumacher his F1 debut in 1991, told Reuters after Sunday's U.S. Grand Prix.

"It is completely unfair...this business is about competition and it needs to be fair and seen to be fair. It is not any of those things.

"Without the small teams you lose the very fabric of the make-up of Formula One," continued Jordan, in Austin as a BBC television pundit. "It is disgraceful the way they are being treated."

Jordan was speaking after a weekend dominated by debate about the skewed division of the sports revenues, with the bigger teams receiving bonus payments on top of a substantial slice of the revenues, and talk of boycotts by teams fearing for their futures.

A report in the latest edition of Autosport magazine claimed that Ferrari received an estimated $166 million in 2013 while Marussia were paid just $10 million and Caterham $31 million.

Both Marussia and Caterham went into administration before Austin and did not compete, with their futures in doubt.

An administrator for Caterham said last Friday that the team may have to be wound up in the next two weeks while Marussia's 200-strong staff were paid until the end of October only.
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